King Alfred of England eBook

The cases, however, in which the Danish chieftains
were either entirely conquered or finally expelled
from the kingdom were very few. As years passed
on, Alfred found his army diminishing, and the strength
of his kingdom wasting away. His resources were
exhausted, his friends had disappeared, his towns
and castles were taken, and, at last, about eight
years after his coronation at Winchester as monarch
of the most powerful of the Saxon kingdoms, he found
himself reduced to the very last extreme of destitution
and distress.

[Footnote 1: For an account of Henrietta’s
adventures and sufferings at Exeter, see the History
of Charles II., chap. iii]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SECLUSION.

Notwithstanding the tide of disaster and calamity
which seemed to be gradually overwhelming Alfred’s
kingdom, he was not reduced to absolute despair, but
continued for a long time the almost hopeless struggle.
There is a certain desperation to which men are often
aroused in the last extremity, which surpasses courage,
and is even sometimes a very effectual substitute
for strength; and Alfred might, perhaps, have succeeded,
after all, in saving his affairs from utter ruin,
had not a new circumstance intervened, which seemed
at once to extinguish all remaining hope and to seal
his doom.

This circumstance was the arrival of a new band of
Danes, who were, it seems, more numerous, more ferocious,
and more insatiable than any who had come before them.
The other kingdoms of the Saxons had been already
pretty effectually plundered. Alfred’s kingdom
of Wessex was now, therefore, the most inviting field,
and, after various excursions of conquest and plunder
in other parts of the island, they came like an inundation
over Alfred’s frontiers, and all hope of resisting
them seems to have been immediately abandoned.
The Saxon armies were broken up. Alfred had lost,
it appears, all influence and control over both leaders
and men. The chieftains and nobles fled.
Some left the country altogether; others hid themselves
in the best retreats and fastnesses that they could
find. Alfred himself was obliged to follow the
general example. A few attendants, either more
faithful than the rest, or else more distrustful of
their own resources, and inclined, accordingly, to
seek their own personal safety by adhering closely
to their sovereign, followed him. These, however,
one after another, gradually forsook him, and, finally,
the fallen and deserted monarch was left alone.

In fact, it was a relief to him at last to be left
alone; for they who remained around him became in
the end a burden instead of affording him protection.
They were too few to fight, and too many to be easily
concealed. Alfred withdrew himself from them,
thinking that, under the circumstances in which he
was now placed, he was justified in seeking his own
personal safety alone. He had a wife, whom he
married when he was about twenty years old; but she